Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Monday June 28, 2010 @07:52AM
from the forgive-me-rhyming-gods dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement resume today in Lucerne, Switzerland, with the ninth round of talks. The Toronto Star highlights the mounting opposition to the deal from developing world countries such as India and China, while Michael Geist has posted a video
of a recent lecture that provides background on the agreement and where
things currently stand."

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as absolutely good for all concerned. Remember, "Everything is gray".

IP could be good for many people, and I would love to see it being applied fairly. But when people choose money over humanity, the things start getting ugly.

I still remember when India was discussing about joining WTO, their biggest concern was something they had been doing since ages, but patented in US (example Basmati rice). It was general impression with Indians that the moment India joins WTO,

The real problem with this whole "anti counterfeiting" thing is, the common man, the "little people" have no voice. Yeah, the talks are more transparent than they were a year or six ago - they've lost their "top secret" status. But, who is speaking for the PEOPLE? Absolutely no one.

Which songs are entering the public domain, this year?

Which movies are entering the public domain this year?

Which patents are entering the public domain?

Which copyright and/or patent laws are being made less restrictive this year?

When I hear that some party to these talks are actively pursuing the overhaul of copyright law, THEN I'll feel that some good may come of ACTA. Until then, I view ACTA as little more than a highway to hell. If one party wins out, we go to Satan's throne room, if another party wins out, we end up in the far reaches of Satan's kingdom. But, it's still hell.

I want 20 year old copyrighted works in the public domain, unless the so-called "rights holder" is willing to pay some HUGE bribes to society. Not to a handful of lawmakers, but to society as a whole. Give something to us "little people", in exchange for a continued monopoly on some specific copyrighted work. God knows, that bastard Al Gore doesn't need anything, or Obama, or anyone else in Washington. Give something to the school kids, and the moms and dads who have to pay for all the cool schitzls that the school kids need/want.

They should have called the ACTA BACTA® to confuse the EFF. After all, Bacta kept Luke Skywalker alive in the Empire Strikes Back so geeks are predisposed to be in favour of them. Plus bacta® is trademarked by Lucasfilm so they can sue or prior restrain people who discuss it on the internet other than in conjunction with Lucasfilm licensed merchandise like the Extra Special Limited Bacta® Edition Empire Strikes Back pack which comes with life size Bacta® tank, only $199,999.99 (Bacta® no

No shit. It seems that many of the sites I've been reading have dropped to the level of some unknown blog, with lots of stupid things like this. Attention: your audience isn't a bunch of third-graders who are amused by headlines like that, among other cheap attempts at making something funny.

Clearly this ACTA will be shoved through the same way NAFTA, DMCA, Pelosicare, and the EU Lisbon Treaty was shoved through even though 70-80% were against all of those bills/treaties. Alex Jones claims it's because governments are being run by a banking elite and megacorporations, but I don't think it's anything so complicated. I believe our leaders in the EU, US, and elsewhere have simply decided they are the new nobility, and they are blessed by god/time/fate/whatever to rule over the serfs (us). i.e. Democracy is dead; the People are ignored.

ACTA will pass. It might change names (like the EU Constitution was renamed Lisbon Treaty) but eventually it will pass in direct opposition to our wishes.

Alex Jones claims it's because governments are being run by a banking elite and megacorporations, but I don't think it's anything so complicated.

Then you, sir, have lost sight of the power of lobbying.

ACTA, and anything related to trade and copyright have been pushed through because they've been beneficial to business interests. Most of the US bailout funds was spent on big banks because it would be awful if they had any inconvenience. Then, 6 months later, they're paying it back from record profits so they don't need to listen to the government telling them what they should do.

'The people' are ignored because they're not making campaign contributions on the scale of the MPAA/RIAA, and ACTA is being pushed through because precisely those industries want to be sure that the world is beholden to the US DMCA style laws.

You are correct, the politicians have decided they're the modern elite -- but, they still take a lot of direction from the corporations who tell them how they want things run.

I agree, it's businesses who are running this. But I solely blame government. They are responsible for passing the laws, not businesses. Any half-intelligent business will try to have the laws changed in their favor. It's the government's job to not do so. And yeah, it's silly to think that they could resist that money, which is why it shouldn't exist in the first place. Scale it all back, dismantle most of it; it's a tumor that's grown bigger than the host, and threatens society.

Dammit. I used to think that I liked you. Now I hate you. Why? Because you are right, of course. You're perfectly right. It matters not that as much as 99% of the population opposes a measure - if the government wants it, they will find some sneaky, underhanded way to ram it down our throats. Failing that, they'll ram it up our asses - it makes little difference to them.

Ehhh - I don't hate you - I just hate your message for being so damned right.

Nono, things like Rickroll, lolcats, AYBABTU, STFU are funny, and I love those. You just don't mix those with serious topics. Man, I can get myself laughing just reciting that Yoda STFU one: "Up the shut fuck". Laughing right now.

Yes. That unfairly got my hopes up that we had legislated the healing liquid from Star Wars into being. I was thinking, "Wow! That's an awesome fix bill to ObamaCare!" only to be crushed by disappointment after checking the spelling.

For comparison, consider efforts to get voter approval for casino gambling in my home state. The potential casino owners attempted to get approval in just about every election, and despite being shot down 2 times eventually won on the third try. Why did they keep trying? Because even if they had to spend $100 million in advertising and campaigning, they knew that the upside was much higher than that. So they were continually willing to spend whatever money and time it took to win.

ACTA is much like this. The copyright owners believe it will make them huge sums of money long-term, quite possibly in the $trillions. So they will keep spending the time and the money to propose ACTA or ACTA-like ideas until their opponents run out of time and money.

Negotiating, in secret, a treaty that is likely to result in 'A responsibility' to pass a change in the laws of a country is intrinsically undemocratic and, as such, evil from a point of view of democratic principles.

Freedom of speech is meaningless if the issues about which one has cause to speak are shrouded in maximal secrecy.

Oh, that's easy. They'll just negotiate new meanings of words, like this:
Freedom - licensed ability to use product, service or feature*.
Speech - licensed ability to use copyrighted words and symbols of $language_of_choice for intercommunication**.

* Subscription plans for advanced "freedoms" are available to premium users. Basic "freedom" pack includes a "freedom" to pay for services/products/features and "freedom" to consume advertising.
** Basic license grants ability to intercommunicate only with one other person. Mass intercommunication (with 2 or more persons at once) available only to premium users.

After that you can enjoy your "freedom" of "speech" as much as you wish.***

***After exceeding a prepaid limit of enjoyment additional fees will be charged.

Negotiating, in secret, a treaty that is likely to result in 'A responsibility' to pass a change in the laws of a country is intrinsically undemocratic and, as such, evil from a point of view of democratic principles.Freedom of speech is meaningless if the issues about which one has cause to speak are shrouded in maximal secrecy.

Did you elect Sony's CEO? I didn't. Did you give your representative a mandate to uphold your rights or to uphold Virgin's shareholders' profits? Because I see no such mandate in my constitution. Did you vote for them because you wanted your country's laws changed as ordered by Big Media? Because I didn't. And lo and behold, all parties left and right jumped at Big Money's orders except for some fringe movements which can and will be safely ignored because they simply lack the numbers, and won't be able to

Did you vote for them because you wanted your country's laws changed as ordered by Big Media?

Did you vote them out when they sold their souls? Should we really blame big business just because they are more united than we are? Yes, we did give to them, because we thought we could get a piece of the action in some way. Given the power, 90% of the public would show just as much greed as any corporate beast. That's just the way things are, and why nothing's going to change for a long time.

Yes, I did vote them out. Did anything change? No.If big business says they own your house because they're wealthier and more united than you are, does it make it right?Given the power, I'd throw it into the toilet. Too much hassle. I don't like telling people what to do, because I don't like being told what to do.Why are you a corporate apologist, by the way? Do you work for them? If so, are you aware that you're a legitimate target?

Keep on voting them out... What I see in the states is a 95% reelection rate. Promises are routinely made and broken, yet a win at the polls is a dead cert. It's up to us to turn our backs on the bling. If we won't do it, nobody will. What are you demanding actually? That a bunch of crooks rewrite the law? What's the incentive for them if it just cost them their careers?

And don't assume I'm speaking of you personally. You are simply in the minority, as shown by the numbers. A corporate apologist wouldn't po

I'm sure there are a few things more worthy of bloodlust than imaginary property. You don't 'win' an arms race by upping the stakes. I thought people here were supposed to be clever. Do you beat someone to death because the sandwich you ordered wasn't quite to your liking? If silly shit like this makes you jump straight to thinking 'armed revolution' then I worry about the future...

My comment was directed more at the world in general. Seeing how everything is going overall, the slow erosion of basic Human rights in even the country's that are "Free", the corruption of governments and religions, the greed. History has shown that when the "Ruling Elite", as it were, reaches a point where they have become so disconnected from the "common people" that the elite can not even comprehend how some people struggle just to f

It is dead (at least in the US) because the people have allowed it to die. How many locations have laws ONLY permitting Democratic or Republican candidates for senate/congress/presidential races? How many have voter's sign up in advance as either republican or democrat and then hand out pre-filled in and/or custom ballots based on which party they have signed up for, and CAN'T vote differently on election day, even if they were aware enough

How many have voter's sign up in advance as either republican or democrat and then hand out pre-filled in and/or custom ballots based on which party they have signed up for, and CAN'T vote differently on election day

Where you stand with the ACTA agreement if implemented.... no need to worry about it, it will cut the legs off of ordinary people, whilst pandering to big money to tighten it's grip on the little people. Thus the problem of "where you stand" will be eliminated.

Here in the United States, when it comes to copyrights, we haven't been standing for a while now. We've been bent over and taking it from behind. Companies are well on their way to getting their dream of perpetual copyright, and are also on the verge of being able to calculate lawsuit settlements in with their planned revenue. They want to build a magic device within the United States' legal system to let them have their cake and eat it too. Currently they're exploring the option of just having their cu

As much as I'd like to share in your despair, there are always new starry-eyed idealists coming right up behind the generation that now has a day-job and kids. You may tell them to get off your lawn, but they will always be an important force in the world.

Well, to be fair, there are a lot of lawyers whose day jobs are essentially working to oppose ACTA. They're both academics like Geist and activists working at places like the EFF and Public Knowledge. Also, industry and business are not unanimously behind ACTA at all. The Consumer Electronics Association opposes it, for example. So do companies like Google and eBay, but they haven't been very vocal about it, likely because they don't want to upset content owners and big trademark names respectively.

I downloaded the version of ACTA posted previously. Considering the title is the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, I figured it would talk about the illegal production of currency, with a page or two that lobbyists stuck in the middle dealing with copyright infringement. So I did a text search on "money," "coin" and "currency."

The only results were talking about whether money exchanges hands for illegally copied works.

In other words, the Anti COUNTERFEITING Trade Agreement has nothing to do with the illegal production of false currency. Nothing whatsoever. The "Counterfeiting" in the title refers to simple copyright infringement. It's trying to equate copyright infringement with one of the most serious crimes a sovereign nation can face.

If a treaty has to lie right in the title in order not to provoke outrage by the citizens of the countries governed by it, it's a bad treaty. No exceptions.

You're spot on, ACTA has zilch to do with currency counterfeiting. The title comes from the time when it was envisioned as a tool to deal with fake Gucci, D&G, & Louis Vuitton products, basically. Knock-off purses, sunglasses, clothing, all that stuff you can buy in the streets of every major city from vendors who spread them out on blankets.

Then ACTA got an Internet chapter! Which is funny, you know, because there's really not much counterfeiting of that type going on online. (Actually, there is, w

It's not referring to currency counterfeiting, but goods counterfeiting, like that guy on the street that sells "Rolex" watches for $5, or the guy that sells DVDs out the back of a station wagon.
Of course, I assume that was the original target, but the final bill is apparently more targeted at your everyday consumer, trying to put all the power in the hands of corporations.